Blog: NFL

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Netflix, the NFL, and the Amazon effect

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Tim Mulligan

21 May 2024

sports streaming

After two decades of saying no to becoming a live sports streamer, Netflix has finally relented and has agreed to pay the NFL to show two NFL games on Christmas daythis year. The three year deal also includes options for other holiday games to be livestreamed in 2025 and 2026.

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Was this the year of peak ad revenues for Paramount and the Super Bowl?

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Tim Mulligan

13 Feb 2024

Sunday saw the Super Bowl LVIII broadcast on CBS, Paramount+, and Nickelodeon, providing a bumper advertising windfall estimated at between $650-$700 million for parent company Paramount. The media majors’ entire business model is under intense scrutiny from investors made nervous by its losses (-$855 million for 2023 as of Q3 2023), and the overall share price being down 40% year-to-date.

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Amazon touches down with a new streaming era for NFL… and a boost to Prime membership

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Tim Mulligan

27 Sep 2022

Thursday Night Football

On September 15th, Amazon Prime Video aired its first Thursday Night Football ( TNF ) match under its new $1 billion-per-year domestic broadcast rights deal. Amazon’s decision to become the exclusive broadcaster (via Prime Video and Twitch) has meant that all NFL fans outside of the local markets of the playing teams (which Amazon syndicates out to local broadcast-TV stations as part of the terms of the deal) must have a Prime subscription in order to watch the TNF games.

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How Amazon could enhance its NFL coverage with virtual concert experiences

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Kriss Thakrar

30 Mar 2021

Amazon Prime has acquired the exclusive Thursday Night Football (TNF) rights to 15 NFL games, marking a new era for the world’s most valuable sports league. This shift is a giant step towards the normalisation of live entertainment on SVOD platforms as it takes Amazon’s four-year coverage of TNF beyond digital and into exclusive broadcast territory – making the e-commerce platform the only place to view TNF between 2023 and 2033.

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The billion-dollar content play: Why Amazon is intentionally overpaying for its NFL rights

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Tim Mulligan

22 Mar 2021

Last Thursday , the sports ecosystem breathed a collective sigh of relief. The NFL, the world’s most valuable sports league, secured an 11-year broadcast deal worth a staggering $100 billion. This huge sum was secured despite the increasing disengagement of younger demographics with live TV sports viewing; less than 10% of US TV sports audiences are now 16-19 years old (source MIDiA Research Q4 2020 consumer survey).

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Is gaming the solution to sports’ Gen Z problem?

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Alistair Taylor

8 Mar 2021

It has been well-documented that Gen Z’s and Generation Alpha’s interest in watching live sports has waned . It is important to dispel the notion that the younger cohorts are less likely to engage with sports, but rather to appreciate that they just consume them differently .

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Watch Together: BT Sport adapts to lockdown, offering synchronised group streaming

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Alistair Taylor

4 Feb 2021

The pandemic-enforced prohibition of fans in attendance at sporting events has weakened the viewing spectacle, forcing rights holders and operators to experiment with the viewing experience. The NHL pioneered the drive for change in terms of the viewing format, vying to create a ‘ made-for-TV ’ product for its 2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

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Football looks to build digital engagement through Fortnite collaboration

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Alistair Taylor

22 Jan 2021

Endeavor-owned IMG, acting as Epic Games’ licensing representative, has brokered deals with 23 football clubs to appear in the publisher’s free-to-play battle royale-style game Fortnite. Looking to capitalise on an increasingly valuable market, with diversifying revenue streams a paramount objective, sport is starting to play its way into the world of micropayments and in-app purchases, turning fandom into revenue .

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Why the NFL is targeting ‘cord-nevers’

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Alistair Taylor

14 Jan 2021

For decades, rights holders have prioritised (and relied upon) exponentially increasing broadcast revenues as a mechanism for sustainability and growth, a legacy approach that is in dire need of a review with ‘ D-day’ for sporting rights upon us in 2021.

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Line change for the NHL: COVID-enforced innovation arrives as ‘D-Day’ commences

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Alistair Taylor

7 Jan 2021

Sporting rights

With 2021 commencing, the start of ‘ D-day’ or ‘ Year 0’ for sporting rights is upon us, as the major domestic sports rights start coming up for renewal. Nowhere is ‘D-day’ for sporting rights more important than for the NHL, with 2021 shaping up to be the most significant year in the league’s 103-year history.

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English Premiership Rugby gets set for a digital shake-up

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Alistair Taylor

17 Dec 2020

English Premiership Rugby

Tech major Amazon is reportedly looking to add to its burgeoning sports right portfolio, targeting the domestic broadcast rights for English Premiership Rugby. London Irish owner, Mick Crossan, confirmed the giant’s entry into the tender process to the Mail on Sunday , following Amazon’s experiment with live streaming rugby after its acquisition and £20 million lifeline for the exclusive UK broadcast rights to last months’ inaugural Autumn Nations Cup .

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DAZN launches globally with advent calendar offering of boxing contests

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Alistair Taylor

3 Dec 2020

subscription video on demand

DAZN’s global roll out is finally here , following an announcement to launch worldwide (including the UK) back in March. The pandemic-enforced postponement and cancellation of live sports scuppered its original plans to coincide its launch with Canelo Alvarez’s world title fight in May.

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DraftKings is making its own strategic bet on the rise of the US sports betting market

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Alistair Taylor

19 Nov 2020

betting company

US-based sports betting company DraftKings’ stock value has grown 11% following a strong third-quarter performance in which its revenues increased 98% year on year (YoY) to reach $132.8 million, up from $67 million in Q3 2019.

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WWE Q3 Earnings – An innovative digital strategy helps WWE overcome COVID-19 disruption

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Alistair Taylor

12 Nov 2020

World Wrestling Entertainment

WWE’s Q3 2020 results provide a fascinating insight into how a live event-focused entertainment business has successfully navigated a global pandemic. In its financials for the quarter , WWE saw a 19% revenue increase year-on-year (YoY), with Q3 2020 revenue at $221.

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DAZN financials: Growth reliant on premium domestic rights

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Alistair Taylor

14 Sep 2020

DAZN’s 2018 financials highlighted the difficulty of encouraging a transition to consume live sports digitally with its existing portfolio of rights. DAZN has not yet released its 2019 financials, but MIDiA has constructed a robust and accurate subscriber and revenue model for the sport-centric streaming service which will be published in full as part of our DAZN Financials and Subscriber Deep Dive report.

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TwitchSports: Amazon throws sports into the starting line-up

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Alistair Taylor

29 Jul 2020

Amazon-owned Twitch is no newcomer to sports. However, in a deliberate move to double down, Amazon has conceded that it needs to improve the discoverability of live sporting events for its platform users – so, as of last Wednesday, ‘Sports’ has become a standalone category with the return of Twitch.

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DAZN’s belated UK launch: Can it avoid Eleven Sports’ 'mistake’?

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Alistair Taylor

24 Jul 2020

Media & Marketing

DAZN, the anointed ‘Netflix of Sport’, has announced plans to resume launching its services globally via a beta service covering boxing bouts In July and August, for users who have registered their interest, free of charge, ahead of DAZN’s revamped imminent global rollout.

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Reach for the win: BT Sport to air UEFA Champions League final on YouTube

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Alistair Taylor

23 Jul 2020

Media & Marketing

UK pay-TV incumbent BT Sport has announced it will air this year’s (COVID-delayed) UEFA Champions League (UCL) final free-to-air (FTA) on Google-owned YouTube. YouTube’s head of sport in EMEA, Tomos Grace confirmed the move with SportsPro Media :“BT Sport have been amazing partners for YouTube and we’re very privileged to be working with them.

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NBCUniversal hopes to draw level with Premier League move

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Alistair Taylor

15 Jul 2020

With Comcast’s NBCUniversal-owned Peacock launching today (July 15th), sports fans will be excited ahead of NBCU’s repositioning of its English Premier League (EPL) rights, giving paying subscribers access to 175 fixtures for the 2020/2021 season on its over-the-top (OTT) streaming service.

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FuboTV adds key sporting rights to portfolio following Disney deal

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Alistair Taylor

2 Jul 2020

Sporting rights

FuboTV, the US over-the-top (OTT) internet-delivered TV service launched back in January 2015 as a soccer-centric proposition. In that time it has established itself as a niche distributor of live streams of MLS and LatAm soccer matches to US, Canadian and Spanish audiences.

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